1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a liquid ejecting head, a method of manufacturing the same, and a liquid ejecting apparatus provided with the liquid ejecting head and, more particularly, to an ink jet recording head that discharges ink as liquid, a method of manufacturing the same, and an ink jet recording apparatus.
2. Related Art
In an ink jet recording head, which is a typical liquid ejecting head, generally, ink is supplied from an ink cartridge, which is a liquid reservoir portion and filled with ink, to a head element through an ink flow passage, which is formed in a supply member, such as an ink supply needle, which is an ink supply element and detachably inserted into the ink cartridge, and a cartridge case in which the ink cartridge is held, and the ink supplied to the head element is discharged from a nozzle by driving a pressure generating device, such as a piezoelectric element, provided for the head element.
In the above ink jet recording head, when bubbles that are present in ink contained in the ink cartridge or bubbles trapped into ink when the ink cartridge is attached or detached are supplied to the head element, the bubbles problematically cause defective discharge, such as dot omission. To solve the above problem, there is a technique that a filter is provided between an ink supply needle, inserted into an ink cartridge, and a supply member to remove bubbles, dust, or the like, in the ink (see JP-2000-211130, for example).
In addition, the above filter is fixed to the supply member by means of thermal welding, or the like, and the ink supply needle is fixed to the supply member by means of ultrasonic welding, or the like.
However, with the configuration described in JP-2000-211130, the filter is provided in a region to which the ink supply needle of the supply member is fixed. This requires a region corresponding to the area of the filter and also requires a region for separately welding the ink supply needle and the filter to the supply member. Thus, an interval between the adjacent ink supply needles cannot be reduced and, therefore, the size of a head problematically increases.
In addition, in the configuration described in JP-A-2000-211130, when the area of the filter is excessively reduced for reducing the size of the head, a dynamic pressure increases. This problematically requires an increase in driving voltage for driving a pressure generating device, such as a piezoelectric element or a heater element.
In addition, when the ink supply needle is fixed to the supply member by means of thermal welding, a gap may be formed therebetween. Thus, ink problematically leaks through the gap.
Note that the above problems are not only present in the ink jet recording head but also similarly present in a liquid ejecting head that ejects liquid other than ink.